R.I.P., J. Geils

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

I don’t want the blog to turn into an obit column, but I felt compelled to note the passing of John Warren Geils Jr., the guitarist behind the J. Geils Band.

You may recall the band’s Eighties hits — “Centerfold,” “Love Stinks,” and “Freeze-Frame” — but I stumbled across them in the Seventies, my initiation likely being the live album “Full House,” which I still have on vinyl.

There were a bunch of keepers on that one, my favorites being “First I Look At the Purse,” “Pack Fair and Square,” and “Whammer Jammer.” Magic Dick could do magic for real — dude could make a harp sound like a sax.

Charles P. Pierce, who has his own recollection of the band, found another keeper online, “Floyd Hotel,” from 1973. As usual Peter Wolf and Magic Dick play starring roles, but Geils contributes a few worthy licks on slide. And keyboard player-songwriter Seth Justman tinkles them ivories right nice too.

“Take out your false teeth, mama, I want to suck on your gums.” With lines like that you can almost excuse the stagewear and hairdos. Hey, it was the Seventies, what can I tell you?

‘This customer needs service’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
A United customer-service agent faced with an overbooking situation prepares to “re-accommodate” a passenger.

Not content to settle for losing/destroying its passengers’ luggage, delaying/canceling their flights, or simply leaving them stranded well short of their “final destination,” United has taken customer service to a whole new level undreamed of by Samsung, Comcast or your friendly local DMV:

Just kick the shit out of the troublesome sonsabitches.

C’mon. You knew it was coming. United specializes in employing the unemployable, the sort of authority-mad misfit who can’t make it as a mall cop, Klan enforcer, or presidential press secretary.

Sooner or later one of United’s goons was going to segue from daydreaming of the good old days euthanizing puppies in Leach Field, Alabama, to siccing the dogs on some passenger who not only didn’t want to get boned, but wouldn’t even pull his pants down on command.

As usual, this pissy attitude trickles down from the top. CEO Oscar Munoz should be sentenced to flying coach for a few years to see how long it takes him to become “disruptive and belligerent,” and if he were to be “re-accommodated” by a size-13 boot to the balls, well, I don’t expect many United customers would shed a tear.

But y’know what? Fuck us and what we think. United stock actually closed up after all this bad noise. America’s commercial airlines are enjoying record profits (United made $2.3 billion in profits last year). Overbooking flights pays off.

So shuddup, siddown and enjoy our in-flight entertainment: a gladiatorial match featuring four passengers selected at random. If you’re lucky, we won’t “re-accommodate” you at our cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, the way we just did your luggage.

Rocks ‘n’ rollin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Everybody must get stoned.

My man Charles Pelkey will be kick-starting the Live Update Guy machinery tomorrow for Paris-Roubaix, so all y’all should bounce that way to say, “Allez.”

We gave the software a bit of a test-drive today and all seems well. As for the race, it looks to be a dusty one, and while Tom Boonen seems the sentimental favorite, the cobbles have no sentiment atall atall.

Meanwhile, King Donald the Short-fingered is looking all thumbs after his Feat of Strength in Syria. We warn the Russians, the Russians warn the Syrians, and hey presto! Twenty-four hours later Assad is back to business as usual, albeit with conventional weapons.

It’s like the worst ass-kicking movie, like, ever:

Don: Hey, Vlad, it’s Don.

Vlad: What up, bruh?

Don: I’m headed over to that punk Bashar’s place to teach him a lesson. Just giving you a head’s up, I know you’re tight and all.

Vlad: No worries, bruh, thanks for the call.

(click)

(30 seconds later)

Bashar: Hello?

Vlad: Yo, Bash’, Don’s coming over to kick your ass.

Bashar: Good time for it, I was just stepping out to the Home Depot. Need some more Roundup. He’ll have to settle for pissing on my lawn or something.

Vlad: Ha ha ha, yeah. Spell his name on it or something. Probably wrong, too.

Bashar: Ha, yeah, for sure.

Vlad: OK, see you.

Bashar: Laters.

 

Boom-boom, sailor?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Mr. Ivanka of Hollywood models the latest beachwear during a visit to Iraq.

Darth Cheeto donned his big black helmet yesterday and — after advising any Rooskies in the vicinity to take it on the Jesse Owens — ordered a barrage of ship-launched cruise missiles against a Syrian airfield, in retaliation for a chemical-weapons attack said to have killed 80 civilians.

Foreign Policy magazine and more than a few politicians of all stripes have questioned the thinking behind and legality of the strike. Congress, naturally, is sprawled on the couch, watching cable news and gobbling popcorn, happy to have someone else in control of the remote while occasionally shouting, “This show sucks!”

These things are always “targeted” strikes “in the vital national interest” and not at all acts of war, of course. And it goes without saying that they have nothing to do with bolstering anyone’s sagging poll numbers, or drawing the One Big Eye away from legislative failures, broken promises and tensions within the Praetorian Guard. Nor could there have been any messaging in the timing of the attack (while hosting President Xi Jinping of China at Mar-a-Lago).

I guess this is why Mr. Ivanka of Hollywood was modeling that stylish Kevlar-blazer combo in Iraq yesterday. The Chinese apparently have yet to supply the matching handbag, but you can’t have everything, y’know. War is heck.

R.I.P., Steve Tilford

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

It seems that Steve Tilford has followed Mike Deme’s wheel to the Beyond.

Few details yet, but it appears that he and a friend were in a horrific pileup involving a van and two semis west of Grand Junction.

Steve and I weren’t close, but we used to bump into each other now and again at various races, and he was always approachable, friendly and generous with his time.

And he wrote unsparingly of his sport, bicycle racing, on the blog. If you cut a corner, Tilly was gonna call you on it.

This is shaping up to be an exceptionally bad year. My condolences to his friends, fans and family.